Random House Inc.

»I don't have two lives», Annie Leibovitz writes in the Introduction to this collection of her work from 1990 to 2005. «This is one life, and the personal pictures and the assignment work are all part of it.» Portraits of well-known figures Johnny Cash, Nicole Kidman, Mikhail Baryshnikov, Keith Richards, Michael Jordan, Joan Didion, R2-D2, Patti Smith, Nelson Mandela, Jack Nicholson, William Burroughs, George W. Bush with members of his Cabinet — appear alongside pictures of Leibovitz's family and friends, reportage from the siege of Sarajevo in the early Nineties, and landscapes. The pictures form a narrative of a life rich in contrasts and continuities. The photographer has a long relationship that ends with illness and death. She chronicles the celebrations and heartbreaks of her large and robust family. She has children of her own. All the while she is working, and the public work resonates with the themes of the life.

Patrick Bateman is handsome, well-educated, intelligent. He works by day on Wall Street, earning a fortune to complement the one he was born with. His nights he spends in ways we cannot begin to fathom. He is twenty-six years old and living his own American Dream.

This superb new translation of «Death in Venice» and six other stories by Thomas Mann is a tour de force, sure to establish itself as the definitive text for English-speaking readers. The seven stories in this collection represent the early part of Mann's literary career, beginning with work he produced in 1896 at the age of 21, and culminating in his most celebrated novella, «Death in Venice» (1912). Although Mann continued working until the end of his life in 1955, he despaired of ever matching the quality of his early writing. In these stories, Mann began to grapple with themes that were to recur throughout his work. In the first piece, «Little Herr Friedemann», as in «Death in Venice», a character's carefully structured way of life is suddenly and unexpectedly threatened by sexual passion. In «Gladius Dei», puritanical intellect clashes with beauty. In «Tristan», Mann presents an ironic and comical account of tension between an artist and bourgeois society. All seven of these stories are accomplished and memorable, but it is «Death in Venice» that truly forms the centerpiece of the collection. Themes that weave their way through many of the shorter stories come to a climax in this novella, out century's most haunting, magnificent tale of art and self-destruction.

Casanova, the Prince of Italian adventurers, is remembered as a libertine and rogue. Few know the true story of his remarkable life — and of the duel he once fought with a Polish Count. On the run from the Venetian authorities, Casanova was forced to become an exile. Far from destitute, however, his reputation afforded him shelter throughout Europe, and gained him admission into society's highest circles. Yet there, he soon found himself implicated, insulted, and forced to enter into a duel over a ballerina — a lady in whom neither he nor his Polish rival had the slightest interest. Describing the dramatic encounter and its surprising outcome with sardonic and even blase humour, Casanova creates a work of thrilling adventure, and proves his literary prowess.

The fourth book in «New York Times» bestselling author Martin's landmark series arrives to the delight of fans the world over. This is historical fiction that never was, filled with gritty characters, realistic conflicts, heroism, barbarism, defeats, and triumphs.

When a high-powered gallery owner collides with an offbeat artist, it's the perfect recipe for disaster. With unerring insight into the hearts of men and women — and into the soul of the artist — Steel takes readers into a world of glamour and genius, priceless art and dazzling creativity.

The courtroom will never be the same when the legal world's oddest couple team up in their third mystery.

Bret Ellis is a writer whose first novel, Less than Zero, catapulted him to international stardom. In the wake of his third novel, American Pyscho, he was vilified mercilessly. In the midst there is the loss of his father and his dissolution in a world of drugs and booze. Now, ten years later, the time has come for Bret to reconnect with his son and his mother and try to have a more sedate life. Unfortunately his newly found family and stability is immediately threatened by a freak sequence of events and a bizarre series of murders that seem all to be connected to Bret. As he struggles to defend his family, his very sanity is called into question. In this chilling tale fantasy and reality combine to create an alternate version of the author's life, one that that is as shocking as it is haunting.

It is New Year's Eve when the storm of the century hits northern California. In a quiet neighborhood in San Francisco, amid the chaos of fallen trees and damaged homes, the lives of three strangers are about to collide in Steel's latest №1 bestseller.

Captain Jack Sparrow has a problem. If he doesn't settle a blood debt to the legendary Davy Jones, ruler of the ocean depths, he will be forced to live an afterlife of eternal servitude.

This volume draws on a wide variety of translations — from the early 20th century to the present — of Rumi's deeply moving, sensually vibrant poetry.

A millionaire businessman hires Nero Wolfe to snoop on his daughter's boyfriend. It seems like a simple case. Then a powerful gangland boss tries to convince Wolfe to drop the matter by shooting up his orchid room. The great detective soon finds himself in a highly complex case involving drugged drinks, man-killing debutantes and a decidedly un-American party.

Nobody blows smoke like Nick Naylor. He's a spokesman for the Academy of Tobacco Studies — in other words, a flack for cigarette companies, paid to promote their product on talk and news shows. The problem? He's so good at his job, so effortlessly unethical, that he's become a target for both anti-tobacco terrorists and for the FBI. In a country where half the people want to outlaw pleasure and the other want to sell you a disease, what will become of the original Puff Daddy?

Steel explores the perils of dating, relationships, and love within the intoxicating, infuriating world of three charming single men, also known as Toxic Bachelors.

In his latest «New York Times» bestseller, Koontz delivers «a good, old-fashioned, barn-burning, beat-the-clock thriller that pits an innocent man against the worst sort of evil» («Denver Post»).

Ged was the greatest sorcerer in all Earthsea, but once he was called Sparrowhawk, a reckless youth, hungry for power and knowledge, who tampered with long-held secrets and loosed a terrible shadow upon the world. This is the tale of his testing, how he mastered the mighty words of power, tamed an ancient dragon, and crossed death's threshold to restore the balance.

This work presents a sparkling and sexy tale of glamour modelling, romance and the treacherous promises of fame. Eighteen-year-old Angel has only one dream: to leave behind the sheltered safety of her home and head for the modelling agencies of the big city. Young, beautiful and sexy, she seems destined for a successful career in modelling and, very quickly, the glitzy world of celebrity fame and riches becomes her new home. But then she meets Mickey, the lead singer of a boy band, who is as irresistible as he is dangerous, and Angel discovers that a rising star can just as quickly fall...

Mandy has been picked on at school for as long as she can remember. That's why she is delighted when cheeky, daring, full-of-fun Tanya picks her as a friend. Mum isn't happy — she thinks Tanya's a bad girl and a bad influence. Mandy's sure Tanya can only get her out of trouble, not into it...or could she?

In this enviable gathering, Haruki Murakami has chosen for his party some of the very best short story writers of recent years, each with their own birthday experiences, each story a snapshot of life on a single day. Including stories by Russell Banks, Ethan Canin, Raymond Carver, David Foster Wallace, Denis Johnson, Claire Keegan, Andrea Lee, Daniel Lyons, Lynda Sexson, Paul Theroux, William Trevor and Haruki Murakami, this anthology captures a range of emotions evoked by advancing age and the passing of time, from events fondly recalled to the impact of appalling tragedy. Previously published in a Japanese translation by Haruki Murakami, this English edition contains a specially written introduction.

»Fury» is a wickedly brilliant and pitch-black comedy about a middle-aged professor who finds himself in New York City in the summer of 2000. Not since, the Bombay of «Midnight's Children» have a time and place been so intensely and accurately captured in a novel. «Fury» opens on a New York living at breakneck speed in an age of unprecedented decadence. Malik Solanka, a Cambridge-educated self-made millionaire originally from Bombay, arrives looking, perversely, for escape. This former philosophy professor is the inventor of the hugely popular doll, Little Brain, whose multiform ubiquity — as puppet, cartoon and masked woman — now rankles with him. He becomes frustratingly estranged from his own creation. At the same time, his marriage is disintegrating: it escalates into a rage-filled battle, and Solanka very nearly commits an unforgiveable act. Horrified by the fury within him, he flees home and family and becomes a sort of spiritual mendicant — except that he has a credit card and a duplex on the Upper West Side. Solanka discovers that he has come to a city roiling with anger, where cab drivers spout invective and a serial killer is murdering women with a lump of concrete, a metropolis whose population is united by petty spats and bone-deep resentment. His own thoughts, emotions and desires, meanwhile, are also running wild.

High school student Mai Taniyama, her handsome boss Kazuya Shibuya (aka Naru), and other members of Shibuya Psychic Research are now tackling the eerie case of the Morishita family. What is the tragic story hidden within the Morishitas' old house? Is it haunted by a mischievous poltergeist, or by something far more sinister? As Mai and Naru dig deep to uncover the home's dark secrets, they learn that every child who has ever lived there has died under mysterious circumstances. And they soon discover that the malevolent forces at the house have a disturbing face: the creepy smile of Ayami Morishita's doll. Of course, destroying a child's toy should be a simple matter, right?

He is one of the most haunting characters in all of literature. At last, the evolution of his evil is revealed. Hannibal Lecter emerges from the nightmare of the Eastern Front, a boy in the snow, mute, with a chain around his neck. He seems utterly alone, but he has brought his demons with him. Hannibal's uncle, a noted painter, finds him in a Soviet orphanage and brings him to France, where Hannibal will live with his uncle and his uncle's beautiful and exotic wife, Lady Murasaki. Lady Murasaki helps Hannibal to heal.With her help he flourishes, becoming the youngest person ever admitted to medical school in France. But Hannibal's demons visit him and torment him.When he is old enough, he visits them in turn. He discovers he has gifts beyond the academic, and in that epiphany, Hannibal Lecter becomes death's prodigy.

World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov shares the powerful secrets of strategy he has learned from dominating the world’s most intellectually challenging game for two decades – lessons about mastering the strategic and emotional skills to navigate life’s toughest challenges and maximise success no matter how tough the competition. Drawing on a wealth of revealing and instructive stories, not only from his finest games, but also from a wide-ranging and perceptive knowledge of current affairs, Kasparov reveals the strategic ways of thinking that always give a player – in life as in chess — the edge. With a raconteur’s engaging charm, a great chess strategist takes us inside a brilliant strategic mind. As Sun Tzu distilled the secrets of the art of war and Machiavelli unveiled the lessons to be learned from courtly intrigue, Garry Kasparov – a player whose record is likely never to be rivalled – reveals how and why the game of chess is a fitting and powerful teacher, of how to be prepared for, and how to win in, even the most competitive situations.

»The Kennedys» uncovers the truth behind the greatest conspiracy story of the twentieth century: the devastating plot against America's first family. Mind-boggling in its implications, the conspiracy aimed at changing the direction of American politics but went much further, altering the political direction of the whole world. In the view of the conspirators, John F. Kennedy should never have become president. His plans to put the needs of the people before those of big business were intolerable. There were fears that he had a socialist streak which might well be identifiable as communist. From the moment he took office, he was on his way out. It was only a question of time. This is a story of hatred, revenge and murder that was covered up by stark fear for many years. It is a tale of intrigue, unholy alliances and unimaginable callousness. Revealing the amalgamation of two potent forces dedicated to ridding the White House of the Kennedys, the question demanding to be asked is: who really ruled the United States? To many across the world, the answer may be frightening. «The Kennedys» is an unbelievably dramatic, dynamic and awesomely gripping work that will shock and enlighten many.